To those who walk up the left side of the escalator, while we stand on the right side, looking on, we're all very impressed at your refusal to do things the easy way, proudly distinguishing yourself from the feeble freeloaders on the right side hitching a ride like a school of remoras on a tiger shark. As we watch you burst through the white tape at the top, arms spread wide, face pointed to the heavens, tears streaming down your face, we can't help but wonder what it must be like...if only we'd had your steel determination, maybe that could be us...

Sure, walking up the escalator will get you to the top slightly faster than those riding and those walking the stairs. But contrary to what someone may have shouted at the bottom, or what you may have thought you heard someone whisper to someone else, there's no money-prize waiting at the top; there's not a helicopter up there waiting to whisk you away on an aerial tour of the city's nude beaches. You've got to walk out of there on the ground just like the everyone else, so you might as well take a note from the rest of us and conserve your energy. You're already getting a free ride to the top, isn't that enough? Is your schedule really that tight, that seconds saved on the the escalator make all the difference in your day?

"Gee honey, I don't know if i'll have time to pick timmy up from school today...but mayyybe if I run up the escalator at work, I might be able to squeeze him in..."

Nathan Ames would turn over in his grave if he could see your behavior, he didn't spend his life inventing the escalator so you could just slap him in the face by walking up it...

"Oh hey Nate! What? You invented a moving stairway? Oh, well i'm just gonna walk right up it, like it was regular stairs, whattaya think of that, huh?"

Walking up an escalator is really the same as driving your car down the freeway, opening the door and sticking your leg out to help push... You don't see people climbing through the escape hatch on elevators, so they can shimmy up the moving elevator cable, dive to the platform on their floor, pry the doors open and sprint to their office. So why this flippant behavior on escalators?

I think that good ol' Nathan Ames could really begin to see the decline in the degree to which society took his invention seriously with the advent of the StairMaster. To all these urban sweat-junkies, what is an escalator really, but the world's largest exercise machine, and yet another chance to burn 10 calories. What they've done with the StairMaster is despicable. They've taken a once great, noble machine, whose only purpose was to ease the burden of mankind, and fashioned from it, a twisted instrument of pain, whose only purpose is to increase the burden of mankind.

"Hey, there's a moving staircase that can carry us effortlessly to anywhere in the world! Let's use it to make ourselves sweat!! Yayyyy!"

When the Germans brought spoons and forks to the Chinese during the 4th Ming Dyansty, the Chinese didn't grab two spoons, hold onto the heads and use the handles to pick up clumps of rice like they were just metallic chopsticks! No, they realized the genius of silverware, and used it for its intended purpose. They were eating huge bowls of ice cream, twirling spaghetti, and spooning in their beds before the day was over.

All rationalities aside, there's no room on this moving stairway for ambitious go-getters and show-offs like yourselves. Leave the escalator to us lazy, humble simpletons. Let us be in peace, without further fueling our guilt and self consciousness about our general malaise towards life, and especially towards the manual ascension of heights. If you want to burn some calories, take the stairs...

You certainly won't see me walking up an escalator. Heck, i'd be laying down on the thing if I wasn't worried i'd get my pant cuffs caught in the side and get sucked in.

Final Thought:
In all seriousness, I think this problem with escalators is simply a microcosm of the real trouble with the United States. People just don't take time to relax, to enjoy their surroundings, to enjoy the simple luxury of being carried up a flight of stairs. They're always in a hurry, always impatient. Life is too short to be bounding up escalators. I just hope you don't find yourself walking up the escalator of life, only to find you got to the top sooner than you realized...

It's not enough that Kenyans win every marathon,

Posted by V.I.Pierce Comments